The Searcher by Tana French

The Searcher by Tana French 

Publisher - Viking 

Publication date - 5th November 2020

Thanks to @netgalley and Viking for an advanced copy of the book. 

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The Searcher’s plot deals with a retired Chicago cop, Cal, who moves to Ireland to lead a quiet life. Of course that doesn’t happen as a local boy, Trey, begins to watch him and then pleads with him to help find his brother Brendan who has disappeared.

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It’s set in Ireland but in the deep countryside and it definitely portrays the small village life with everyone one knowing when you even fart! There are some quite tender moments depicting this community aspect. However, this book definitely shows the best and the worse sides of living in this type of area. My dad’s area was the exact same. Ran a business and lived and loved there for over 20 years and was still an outsider. 

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This book was all about the characters though. It was very slow paced so the thing that kept you reading were the people whose story was being told. Cal and Trey were the stars for me and surely they were for all readers. Trey was the epitome of a kid who is given a bad label due to their family and having it dictate their actions and life. But really what you saw was a inner core of steel, someone who needed support and love. Someone who just wanted to be useful and be a kid. I think Cal was someone who realised that he shouldn’t make the same mistakes again with Trey as he did with his own child. But the loyalty and determine to figure out what happened to Brendan was a delight to read. 

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You might read the blurb and think this is a police procedural with a twist - he is just retired. But it’s not at all. It’s more than that. It’s a study of character, motives, hopes and dreams and the crashing burden of reality. At times the power of the descriptive writing made me feel claustrophobic and at other times joyful. It’s definitely one you should read!